
MARCO MAGGI (b. 1957, Uruguay)
“Our time is so preoccupied with the spectacle of macro drama that delicacy… has become subversive.”
New York-based Uruguayan artist Marco Maggi takes everyday objects such as photocopy paper, aluminum foil, apples, and parking mirrors as the foundations for his precisely-rendered sculptures and drawings. Using humor, wordplay, and a range of visual allusions, Maggi uses his meticulous processes to explore the relationship between information and knowledge in our contemporary world.
Maggi attended the State University of New York, New Paltz (SUNY), graduating with an MFA in Printmaking in 1998. The medium, he has said, interested him not for its process, but for the way in which it provided a “threshold between two and three dimensions.” This formal interest connects directly to Maggi’s longstanding concern with the variability of knowledge—the way in which overwhelming amounts of information are disseminated flatly, deflecting introspection or focus. By making works that are both subtle and meticulous, Maggi encourages his viewers to slow down and reflect upon each object’s details and intricacies; that act, of slow looking, is a political act that runs counter to the dominant tendency to look quickly and superficially. Myopia, Maggi writes, is the “best answer to globalization… delicacy is a subversive activity and to pay attention is really shocking.”
Describing Maggi’s work, artist and curator Ana Tiscornia writes, “Whether one or a thousand sheets of paper, an apple or a ceramic board, a metal ruler or a piece of Plexiglas, an aluminum roll or a copper sheet; whether he uses a pencil or a scalpel, Marco Maggi always seems to be organizing some kind of coded information. Actually, his intricate marks, formations of diminutive lines, refined drawings, are universes in permanent expansion that connote readings of the illegible, or organized archives of the unfathomable, but they ultimately refer to the ungraspable element in any information.”
Maggi lives and works in New York and Uruguay.
2021
No visual distancing please…, Sicardi | Ayers | Bacino, Houston, TX, USA
La Revolte du Detail, Galerie Xippas, Paris, France
2019
INITIALISM (From Obscurantism to Enlightenment), Josée Bienvenu Gallery, New York, NY, USA
En Defense de Las Vocales, Galeria Cayon, Madrid, Spain
2018
SUPRA muro, Hosfelt Gallery, San Francisco, CA, USA
O Papel é Inocente (Paper is not guilty), Brazilian Museum of Sculpture (MUBE), San Paulo, Brazil
2017
Theory of the Inevitable Convergence, Galeria Nara Roesler, New York, NY, USA
Marco Maggi, Putin´s Pencils, Sicardi Gallery, Houston, TX. USA
Marco Maggi: Global Myopia (Language in Residence), Hosfelt Gallery, San Francisco, CA, USA
Marco Maggi: The Gold and the Moor, Galeria Nara Roesler, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
2016
Language Descending a Staircase, East Wing Biennial, The Courtauld Art Institute, London, UK
Piano Piano, Espacio Monitor, Caracas, Venezuela
Language in Residence, Josée Bienvenu Gallery, New York, NY, USA
2015
DEPLOYER, Galerie Xippas, Paris, France
Marco Maggi: Unfolding, Josée Bienvenu Gallery, New York, NY, USA
Sentence with Three Corners, Galeria Nara Roesler, São Paulo, Brazil
Into Whiter Space, Sayago & Pardon, Los Angeles, CA, USA
Global Myopia (Pencil & Paper), 56th Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy
Drawing Attention, Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, MO, USA
Marco Maggi / Piano Piano, Espacio Monitor, Caracas, Venezuela
Vuelva Usted Mañana, Galeria Cayon, Madrid, Spain
2014
West Vs. East, Hosfelt Gallery, San Francisco, CA, USA
White Specific, Sayago Pardon, Los Angeles, CA, USA
2013
Fanfold, Sicardi Gallery, Houston, TX, USA
2012
Figari Prize XVII, Museo Figari, Montevideo, Uruguay
Bienal de Cuenca, Ecuador
Turn Left, Galerie Xippas, Paris, France
Le Menor Idea, Galería Cayón, Madrid, Spain
No Idea, Museum of Latin American Art (MOLAA), Long Beach, CA, USA
Lentissimo, The Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, Vassar College Museum, Poughkeepsie, NY, USA
Desinformação funcional, desenhos em portugués, Instituto Tomie Ohtake, São Paulo, Brazil
2011
Bienal de Cuenca, Ecuador (curated by Agnaldo Faria)
Optimismo Radical, NC-Arte, Bogotá, Colombia
X-ACTO, Xippas arte contemporaneo, Montevideo, Uruguay
From Huguenot to Microwave, Dorsky Museum, New Paltz, NY, USA
2010
Al calor del pensamiento, Fundacíon Banco Santander, Madrid, Spain
Infintesimal, Galería el Paseo, Punta del Este, Uruguay
Parking any time, Josée Bienvenu Gallery, New York, NY, USA
American Ream, Palitz Gallery at Lubin House, Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY, USA
Lentissimo, Vassar Museum, Poughkeepsie, NY, USA
2009
American Ream, Warehouse Gallery, Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY, USA
Slow Scandal, Point of Contact Gallery, Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY, USA
Cubic Drops, Hosfelt Gallery, San Francisco, CA, USA
2008
Slow Politics, Sicardi Gallery, Houston, TX, USA
Hipo-Real, Nara Roesler Gallery, São Paulo, Brazil
2007
By disappointment only, Josée Bienvenu Gallery, New York, NY, USA
“From a Drawing Standpoint,” Leo Fortuna Gallery, Hudson, NY, USA
Micro and Soft on Macintosh Apple (with Ken Solomon), Lewis B. and Dorothy Cullman Education and Research Building, Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York, NY, USA
2006
Off/Fora, 29th Pontevedra Biennial, Pontevedra, Spain
Profiles: The Ted Turner Catalog (from CNN to DNA), Hosfelt Gallery, San Francisco, CA, USA
2005
The Ted Turner Collection, Complete Coverage, Josée Bienvenu Gallery, New York, NY, USA
El Papel Del Papel, Centro Colombo Americano, Bogotá, Colombia
Hotbed e Altre Storie, Vitamin Arte Contemporáneo, Torino, Italy
From DNA to CNN, Sicardi Gallery, Houston, TX, USA
Video Box (with Ken Solomon), Centro Cultural Reina Sofía, Montevideo, Uruguay
Le deMond Diplomatique, Galerie Frank, Paris, France
Pages, iSpace, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champagne, Chicago, IL, USA
2004
Fifth Gwangju Biennial, Korea
Micro & Soft on Macintosh Apple, video collaboration with Ken Solomon, Cristinerose/Josée Bienvenu Gallery, New York, NY, USA
2003
inCUBAdora, VIII Havana Biennial, Cuba
Constructing & Demolishing, Cristinerose, Josée Bienvenu Gallery, New York, NY, USA
exPECTACLE, Hosfelt Gallery, San Francisco, CA, USA
Construcciones & Demoliciones, dibujos en español, Centro Cultural Reina Sofía, Montevideo, Uruguay
Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Buenos Aires, Argentina
2002
25th São Paulo Biennial, São Paulo, Brazil
Hotbed Line, Gallery Sala Uno, Rome, Italy
PreColumbian & PostClintonian, Sicardi Gallery, Houston, TX, USA
Micro Macro, DAN Galeria, São Paulo, Brazil
Portuguese Drawings, Dan Galeria, Sao Paulo, Brazil
2001
Global Myopia, Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, MO, USA
BITniks, Hosfelt Gallery, San Francisco, CA, USA
2000
The Pencil Monologues, 123 Watts Gallery, New York, NY, USA
Hardware vs. Software, Miller & Block Gallery, Boston, MA, USA
micro, macro, mArco (0002-9991: a retrospective), ARCO Project Room, Madrid, Spain
1999
From Freezer to Microwave, Hosfelt Gallery, San Francisco, CA, USA
1998
Techtonic, 123 Watts Gallery, New York, NY, USA
American Express, New York, NY, USA
Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA
Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation (CIFO), Miami, FL, USA
Colección Jumex, México City, México
Colección Patricia Phelps de Cisneros, New York, NY, USA
D. Daskalopoulos Collection, Halandri, Greece
Dacra, Miami, FL, USA
Daros Latinamerica Collection, Zürich, Switzerland
De Young Museum, San Francisco, CA, USA
Diane and Bruce Halle Collection, Scottsdale, AZ, USA
Dorsky Museum, New Paltz University, New York, NY, USA
El Museo del Barrio, New York, NY, USA
Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA
Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA, USA
Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C., USA
Indianapolis Museum of Contemporary Art, Indianapolis, IN, USA
Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, MO, USA
Loeb and Lehman Art Center, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, NY, USA
Morgan Library and Museum, New York, NY, USA
Museo de Arte Contemporáneo, São Paulo, Brazil
Museo Tamayo Arte Contemporáneo, México City, México
Museum of Contemporary Art (MoCA), Los Angeles, CA, USA
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA, USA
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH), Houston, TX, USA
Museum of Latin American Art (MOLAA), Long Beach, CA, USA
Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York, NY, USA
Perez Art Museum, Miami, FL, USA
Progressive Corporation, Mayfield Village, OH, USA
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA), San Francisco, CA, USA
San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art, San Jose, CA, USA
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY, USA
Sprint Corporation, Overland Park, KS, USA
Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY, USA
The Drawing Center, New York, NY, USA
The Judith Rothschild Foundation, New York, NY, USA
The Rachofsky House, Dallas, TX, USA
Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN, USA
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY, USA